Word: railroads
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Since the Penn Central Railroad went bankrupt last June, Government investigators have been sifting through the wreckage to determine what part mismanagement played in the collapse. The Interstate Commerce Commission last week charged that the company violated ICC regulations by claiming as ae business expense the premiums an $10 million worth of insurance protecting directors and key officers against liability for wrongdoing. This week an official staff study by Wright Patman's House Banking and Currency Committee accused top officials of the railroad of using their corporate connections to line their own pockets-with the help of Manhattan...
Texas Democrat Patman, an old populist foe of both banks and railroads, called the case "a classic example of the use of corporate power for personal profit." If correct, the charges expose a skein of cozy deals and conflicting interests, and raise questions about the legality of some borrowing and the betrayal of fiduciary trust. The report singled out the activities of David C. Bevan, Penn Central's deposed chief financial officer, and Charles J. Hodge, a former partner in the Manhattan investment banking house of Glore. Forgan (now merged to become F.I. duPont, Glore, Forgan...
...therefores" continued into the 19th century, when several experts asserted that a new invention known as the railroad would kill all of its passengers. Anyone traveling at 30 m.p.h., they reasoned, could not breathe and would die of suffocation. This was only a foretaste of the dire warnings that awaited the inventors of the airplane. "The demonstration that no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery and known forms of force can be united in a practical [flying] machine seems to the writer as complete as it is possible for the demonstration of any physical fact...
...double doors of the drab green second-class railroad coach burst open as the train jerked to a halt. Onto the rain-drenched station platform tumbled 21 disheveled passengers. Men in ill-fitting clothes hurriedly handed down bulging cardboard suitcases. One man struggled with a monstrous feather mattress while a small boy darted away to admire the bicycles in a commuter's rack. There were few words, only a rush to get off the train. With good reason. For many of the passengers, the train was a reminder of a world they have been trying to leave since...
...month. To help pay for his Polish exit visa (about $200 for persons over 16), he sold his antique Polish car for $100. "Some Poles were angry with us and shouted that we should have gotten out earlier," said Heinz H., 60, a telegraph operator for the Polish state railroad. "I told them that if they had let us, we would have gone on foot...